


Touch & Go

by dizzystars



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzystars/pseuds/dizzystars
Summary: Cliffjumper thought he would never see Blurr again.
Relationships: Blurr & Cliffjumper, Blurr/Cliffjumper (Transformers)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fawnsbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawnsbee/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> got inspired to write this while talking abt cliff with my friend bee, so this is dedicated to them!!! :,3  
> i don't personally view this as a ship fic, but the ladder half of it can be seen as maybe a lil shippy? pre-relationship-ish? so i just added the tag anyway dkjgjkldfg  
> and yes this is definitely "canon divergent" from what was planned for season 4 but!! season 4 didn't happen so It's Free Real Estate

Cliffjumper couldn’t help but snort as Optimus waltzed in, acting as if he hadn’t just disappeared in the middle of his shift for megacycles.

“That was an awful long break you took,” he snidely commented, stopping Optimus in his tracks. He supposed it was rude to speak to his Prime in such a way, but then again, it was rude of his Prime to leave unannounced for such a long period of time.

“ _Oh_ \-- I forgot to tell you,” Optimus slowly realized. He sighed and his shoulders drooped. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve comm’d you and let you know I was going to be gone for a while.”

“Where’d you go, anyway?” Cliff asked. His gaze remained on the datapad he was looking over.

“My team and I were paying Blurr a visit. We got a little carried away with our conversation, but I guess we did have a bit of catching up to do.”

Cliffjumper felt his spark stop pulsing for a moment. He nearly dropped his datapad.

“What?” he managed to choke out, finally meeting Optimus’s gaze.

Optimus raised an optic ridge. “Did… no one tell you Blurr was online?”

Cliffjumper shook his head.

“Oh.” Optimus awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, uh… he came back online sometime last night. He seems to be doing really well, especially given the circumstances.”

Optimus continued to ramble on about Blurr’s condition, but Cliff’s audials just filled with ringing.

Cliffjumper had been rightfully horrified when Longarm Prime was revealed to be a Decepticon spy. Someone who he had worked closely with for stellarcycles-- and considered a friend-- turning out to be a traitor was… devastating, to say the least. He never thought he would experience such an awful pain like that ever again.

Until they found Blurr. And Cliffjumper realized that he had handled his co-worker’s mangled corpse and thrown it down a garbage shoot.

That was what completely broke him. He had been struggling to fill in as Head of Intelligence with the emotional weight of Longarm-- no, _Shockwave’s_ betrayal, but realizing what he had done to Blurr was too much. Fortunately, Optimus Prime offered to take his place and Cliff went back to his duties as deputy, but it didn’t do much to ease his pain.

Though the medical experts in the Elite Guard were talented, Cliffjumper, like many bots, had their doubts on if they were going to be able to restore Blurr. Even then, if he was able to have his own body again, there was even less likely of a chance that he’d be totally himself. But from what Optimus had said, it sounded like Blurr was well and whole.

Cliff should have felt relieved. Why didn’t he feel relieved?

“Cliffjumper? Are you alright?”

He snapped out of his thoughts with a violent shake of his helm. He met Optimus’s gaze for a moment before quickly looking back down at his datapad again.

“M’fine,” he muttered. “You’ve got reports to look over. I left them on your desk.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Optimus stood there for a moment longer. “You know, if you want to go see Blurr, you can go. I think I can handle things here by myself.”

He clenched his jaw. “I don’t want to see Blurr. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure? Because--”

“ _Yes_ , I’m _sure_. Would you just let me get back to work?”

Optimus’s optic ridges dipped in worry, but he sighed and headed forward into his office, murmuring an apology. The door shut behind him and Cliffjumper was left alone at his desk in silence. He dug the palms of his servos into his optics, desperately trying to get rid of the coolant forming in them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will post the second half next week!!!!


	2. Chapter 2

Cliffjumper hadn’t really been close with Blurr, but he had seen him around quite a bit. Blurr had also been friends with Long-- _Shockwave_ so they ended up crossing paths every now and then. Cliff had originally found Blurr annoying-- as most bots did-- but he certainly didn’t hate him. Looking back on things now, he wished he would have talked to Blurr more. He wished he could have called him a friend.

Instead, he had held Blurr’s crumpled shell and thrown it away like trash. Cliff felt woozy at the thought. No matter how many times he thought about it, it still made his spark drop.

“Cliffjumper?”

He jumped at Optimus’s voice. He met the Prime’s gaze and frowned.

“Yeah?” he grumbled, lowering his helm to look back at the datapad he had.

“It’s late. You should get going,” Optimus softly said.

Cliffjumper huffed. “I gotta finish this first and then I’ll go. Don’t worry about me.”

Optimus’s mouth opened to speak, then closed again. He shifted uncomfortably and then stood there, silent and awkward. Cliffjumper was about to snap at him to stop staring when he finally spoke again.

“Well, alright then,” he murmured. “I’m going to head out. Take care. If you need anything-- anything at all, you can comm me.”

“I know,” Cliff grumbled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Optimus offered him a small smile. “See you then.”

Cliffjumper watched him leave out of the corner of his optic. Once the doors closed behind Optimus, Cliff’s posture sagged and he sighed. He leaned forward and pinched his nasal ridge.

It had been almost a decacycle since Blurr had come back online, and Cliffjumper still had yet to see him… and he _still_ had yet to _stop thinking about him_. The guilt-- over Shockwave, over having handled Blurr’s body, over not going to see him-- was eating away at him, but he couldn’t even bear the thought of sending Blurr a commlink message, let alone seeing him face to face. He just kept hoping that one day he’d wake up, and he’d stop being plagued by those thoughts.

Cliffjumper finished reading over the last of his reports and finally cleaned up his stations, turned off the lights, and went to leave. The doors opened and he stepped out of the office.

And came face to face with Blurr.

He let out an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp, and stumbled backward, whacking the back of his helm on the doors that had just closed. He fell onto his aft, hard, and the doors behind him opened, mistaking his tumble as a bot trying to enter. If Cliff wasn’t so shocked by the sight of Blurr in front of him, he would have been embarrassed.

That didn’t stop Blurr from being embarrassed though, as his cheeks grew pink and he slapped his servo over his mouth.

“Oh-- I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that-- it was just poor timing I guess, I just was about to come in but then you came out and-- I’m _so_ sorry?”

Cliff just stared at him for a moment. He couldn’t believe Blurr was in front of him, alive and as chatty as always.

“Here, let me help you up-- once again, I’m _really_ sorry, this is not the way I wanted things to go--”

Blurr offered him his servo, which Cliffjumper hesitantly took. He hoped Blurr couldn’t tell how violently his servos were shaking.

As soon as he was on his pedes again, Cliff rubbed the back of his helm, making sure it hadn’t been dented. His attention returned to Blurr who offered him a smile, though a horribly awkward one.

“Uh, what are you doing here?” Cliff choked out. A lump had grown into his throat and he fought desperately to make it go away.

“I was coming to see you,” Blurr simply said with a shrug. “I’ve seen almost everyone else but you since I came back online and I thought it was finally time to fix that.”

Cliffjumper’s spark hurt, horribly. He tried his best to keep a straight face.

“S-sorry about that,” he murmured. “I wanted to come see you, but, uh…”

He blinked and looked away as he tried to think of a valid excuse. His optics were beginning to burn.

“Hey, no hard feelings about it! You’re a busy bot, I understand,” Blurr chirped. “Better late than never, you know?”

Cliffjumper awkwardly smiled and nodded.

“Are you headed home?” Blurr didn’t give him time to respond. “Because if you are, I was wondering if I could walk you to your place so we could catch up on the way.”  
“Oh, uh. Sure.”

All Cliff wanted to do was get away from Blurr. He didn’t want to cry in front of him-- he didn’t want to make Blurr feel bad. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt Blurr again.

Blurr warmly smiled. “Great!”

Cliff led the way out of intel, an awkward, heavy silence falling between them. Cliff eventually cleared his throat and spoke up.

“So… you’ve been recovering alright?” he asked. “You seem pretty okay.”

“Well, I feel pretty okay!” Blurr snickered. Cliff didn’t understand how he was so lively. Blurr _had_ to be in even more emotional pain than he was, right? “The first few solarcycles were a little difficult and I still have to do a lot of physical therapy and check-ups _and_ I’m not allowed to run or drive _too_ fast, but other than that, the recovery’s been really good! Apparently I’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations.”

Cliff tried to smile. “That’s good to hear.”

“How have you been? I heard things have changed a bit at intel, with Optimus and all.”

“Oh, I’m… alright. Optimus is great-- a good bot, good leader,” he answered, shrugging. “Everyone likes him. He’s still getting used to things, though.”

Blurr hummed in agreement. “That’s expected-- a career change like that has to be at least a little bit difficult, I’m sure.”

The awkward silence returned. Cliff racked his processor for anything else to talk about that wouldn’t bring up Shockwave or what Cliff had done, but it was all he could think about.

“Um. Are you sure you’re alright with me walking you home?”

Cliffjumper stopped in his tracks as he heard Blurr’s tone. He met his optics and saw the worry and discomfort in Blurr’s gaze. Cliffjumper clenched his servos as he felt them begin to shake again.

“What?” he blurted, voice breaking.

“You just-- you seem a little off and I’m worried that I’m making you uncomfortable and that’s the last thing I want to do,” Blurr replied. “It’s alright if you don’t want me here, I understand!”

Cliff shook his helm. “No, no, no, you’re fine-- you haven’t done _anything_ wrong--”

His voice gave out on him and he grunted his frustration. He turned his helm away as he felt coolant begin to gather in his optics.

“It’s just…” Cliffjumper sighed. His gaze remained fixated on the ground. “Do you… know what I did to you?”

There was a small pause.

“Yes,” Blurr softly said. “The others told me--”

“Then _why_ are you _here_ ?” he interrupted. “I-I aided in Shockwave in his attempted murder of you-- _I_ deserve to be in the stockades with him and yet here _you_ are, acting as if nothing happened and that we’re friends. I don’t-- I don’t deserve that from you.”

Cliffjumper slumped down, sitting on the sidewalk, his back against a building. He dragged his servos over his face, trying to subtly wipe his tears away.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out. “Just-- just go, I don’t want to make you feel any worse--”

He cut himself off as he heard Blurr sit down next to him, their armor brushing against each other.

“Cliffjumper, I’m not… I don’t blame you for what happened to me,” he said, in the slowest and softest voice Cliff had ever heard from him. “You didn’t know--”

“I should have,” he snapped. “I was _so stupid_ \-- I should have known it was you!”

“In what universe would you _ever_ expect something like that to happen?” Blurr said. “Shockwave was good at what he did-- he fooled _everyone_. Just because you were close to him, just because you did what you did, doesn’t make you as bad as him. I’m not angry at you at all-- we were both played.”

Blurr carefully placed his servo on Cliffjumper’s arm. When he didn’t react, Blurr moved his servo to interlock his digits with Cliff’s, squeezing his servo tightly. Cliffjumper’s breath hitched as he felt Blurr’s servo in his own. Instantly, his processor replayed the memories of Longarm handing him Blurr’s corpse. Cliff so vividly remembered the feeling of his cold, crushed armor against his servos, contrasting against Blurr’s warm, smooth servo. His spark stuttered.

“I’m sorry.” Cliffjumper sniffed. “For everything. For what I did to you, for not coming to see you, for having to make _you_ comfort _me_ about this.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Blurr chuckled. “You deserve comfort and support.”

“Not from you. _You’re_ the one Shockwave hurt.”

“Shockwave hurt you too, Cliff.”

Clifffjumper choked on his words. “But not like--”

“Maybe he didn’t try to kill you, but he still put you through a lot,” Blurr sharply said. “Don’t try to pretend like you aren’t allowed to also be hurt. You went through something awful, too.”

Cliffjumper choked back a sob and rested his weight against Blurr, who in return rested his helm against Cliff’s shoulder and squeezed his servo tighter.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Cliffjumper said, barely above a whisper. “I really am.”

Blurr smiled. He rubbed his thumb across the back of Cliff’s servo. “And I’m glad I came to see you. I know talking about this stuff is hard, but I’m here for you, no matter what.”

Cliffjumper managed to smile and hold onto Blurr’s servo tighter.

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLS LOOK AT THE ART MY FRIEND BAY DID FOR THIS FIC!!! https://bayheart.tumblr.com/post/623225955216965632/i-know-talking-about-this-stuff-is-hard-but-im  
> if you got this far, thank you for reading!!! ;w;  
> you can find me on tumblr for more robot antics........ https://dzzystrs.tumblr.com/


End file.
